Classroom Assessment: What Teachers Need to Know / Edition 6

by W. James Popham

Overview

Written with energy and wit, this reader-friendly text discusses practical ways in which teachers can use well-written tests to improve their effectiveness in the classroom.

Exploring a wide range of classroom assessments as well as how these assessments can benefit student learning, the thoroughly revised sixth edition of Classroom Assessment retains its humorous tone and unique practice exercises while adding new research, new material, and new features. This edition covers both contemporary classroom assessment issues, including No Child Left Behind, instructor accountability, and formative assessments, while also covering traditional assessment topics such as assessment validity and assessment reliability.

Three new chapters include fresh and expanded material on formative assessments, the evaluation of instruction, and properly grading assessments. In addition, a new section at the end of the book provides students with critical thinking exercises that involve real-world assessment issues and that cover central topics from each chapter. Another new feature teaches readers how to best communicate with parents about assessments and assessment results.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780137002337
Publisher:	Pearson
Publication date:	01/15/2010
Edition description:	Older Edition
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	7.30(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

W. James Popham has spent the bulk of his educational career as a teacher. His first teaching assignment, for example, was in a small eastern Oregon high school where he taught English and social studies while serving as yearbook advisor, class sponsor, and unpaid tennis coach. The recompense meshed well with the quality of his coaching.


Most of Dr. Popham’s teaching career took place at UCLA where, for nearly 30 years, he taught courses in instructional methods for prospective teachers as well as courses in evaluation and measurement for graduate students. At UCLA he won several distinguished teaching awards. In January 2000, he was recognized by UCLA Today as one of the university’s top 20 professors of the twentieth century. (He notes that the twentieth century was a full-length century, unlike the current abbreviated one.) In 1992, he took early retirement from UCLA upon learning that emeritus professors received free parking.


Because at UCLA he was acutely aware of the perishability of professors who failed to publish, he spent his non-teaching hours affixing words to paper. The result: over 30 books, 200 journal articles, 50 research reports, and 175 papers presented before research societies. Although not noted in his official vita, while at UCLA he also authored 1,426 grocery lists.


His most recent books are Transformative Assessment (2008); Instruction That Measures Up (2009); Transformative Assessment in Action (2011); Mastering Assessment (2011, Pearson); Unlearned Lessons (2009, Harvard Education Press); Everything School Leaders Need to Know About Assessment (2010); and Evaluating America’s Teachers: Mission Possible? (2013, Corwin). He encourages purchase of these books because he regards their semi-annual royalties as psychologically reassuring.


In 1968, Dr. Popham established IOX Assessment Associates, an R&D group that formerly created statewide student achievement tests for a dozen states. He has personally passed all of those tests, largely because of his unlimited access to the tests’ answer keys.

Table of Contents

1. Why Do Teachers Need to Know About Assessment?
2. Deciding What to Assess
   
3. Reliability of Assessment
   
4. Validity
   
5. Fairness
6. Selected-Response Tests
   
7. Constructed-Response Tests
   
8. Performance Assessment
   
9. Portfolio Assessment
   
10. Affective Assessment
    
11. Improving Teacher-Developed Assessments
    
12. Formative Assessment
    
13. Making Sense Out of Standardized Test Scores
    
14. Appropriate and Inappropriate Test-Preparation Practices
    
15. The Evaluation of Instruction
    
16. Assessment-Based Grading
    

Glossary
Index

Editorial Reviews

From reviews of the text:

“Popham’s writing is clear, engaging, humorous, and yet sophisticated. It speaks to readers in professional and uplifting ways, supportive of both teachers and the field itself . . . . Despite the ease with which one can read the text, it is full of essential information for pre-service teachers. And true to his philosophy throughout the book, less is more; there is no filler here. It gives teachers just what they need to know about assessment, which translates into a book that will be read and read again and then hopefully become part of the future teacher’s philosophy of assessment.”

—Marilyn Roseman, Mount Aloysius College

“Popham’s text is engaging and exceptionally well-written. As a companion to an introductory course in educational assessment, I have not been able to find a text that better addresses the instructional needs of educators who are entering the field. Popham covers core measurement concepts in a highly accessible manner. He makes an effort to disarm students who have anxiety about the mathematical formulas that are often emphasized in other measurement texts . . . . . Each semester I have several students who express their appreciation for the down-to-earth and humorous coverage of this sometimes intimidating content.”

—Deborah Bennett, Purdue University

“It is an easy read with clear definitions and concepts. The illustrations and examples are exemplary in giving students a thorough understanding of what they have read . . . . [The validity] chapter has given me a “new” perspective on teaching validity . . . . I found the item-writing guidelines . . . to be exemplary . . . . It is relevant and up-to-date with the Common Core Standards, PARCC assessments, and Smarter Balance. This new material is more up-to-date than my present textbook . . . . I am so impressed . . . that I plan to change my textbook.”

—Jean Ragin, Coppin State University

From the Publisher